Technical Field
The inventions described herein relate to eyewear apparatuses.
Description of the Related Art
Eyewear has many uses, including the blocking of sunlight, the correction of nearsightedness, farsightedness, or astigmatism, to correct presbyopia while reading, to shield the eyes from possible projectiles, wind, or contaminants, of for fashion. Often, different lenses are required for different purposes.
Several companies provide eyewear with interchangeable lens inserts. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,533,412 B1 describes eyeglasses with interchangeable lenses in which two lenses may be individually attached to a frame. At the temple, the lens is secured by a notch and a tang. At the nosepiece, there is a protruding pin that fits within a circular aperture in the lens. U.S. Pat. No. 7,524,055 B2 describes eyewear in which separate lenses are each individually attached at a nosepiece by tab in each lens that fits in a respective groove within the nosepiece. U.S. Pat. No. 7,883,205 B2 describes clip-on glasses with two lenses that each fit into “lens grabbers” on the clip-on frame. U.S. Pat. No. 8,668,330 describes glasses in which individual frames are secured to a groove with a latch device.
One problem with existing designs is that they are usually unsuitable for use with corrective lenses, because the lenses are designed to fit into a frame, but the lenses themselves are not otherwise surrounded by a frame. Corrective lenses come in a variety of thicknesses, thus making it difficult to use them interchangeably with a standard frame, which must accommodate a variety of different lenses of different thicknesses. In addition, the design of prior interchangeable eyewear limits their versatility in terms of look, color, and proportions, because each lens typically must have standard measurements.
It is therefore desirable to have an interchangeable eyewear system with added versatility in terms of the size, shape, purpose, and appearance of the interchangeable parts.